Bankruptcy, Investment, and Financial Constraints: Evidence from the Czech Republic

Using investment–cash flow sensitivity to analyze financial constraints over the period 2006–2011 in the Czech Republic, we find that healthy companies were financially constrained both before and after the 2008 crisis. There is robust evidence that both the cash flow and the level of debt have a positive and significant impact on the investment rate. Although companies going bankrupt had significantly higher levels of external debt and bank loans, they did not manifest any investment–cash flow sensitivity in the pre-crisis period, which indicates that they were probably not financially constrained at all. After the 2008 crisis, companies that would later declare bankruptcy began to become financially constrained as well.